Cheshire Phoenix head coach Ben Thomas has paid tribute to his team’s powers of recovery after they staged yet another incredible fight back.

The Nix came from 45-36 down at half-time and 64-55 down in the fourth quarter to win their BBL Trophy last-16 tie at home to Glasgow Rocks 79-75 on Sunday.

The thrilling victory came hot on the heels of their BBL Cup semi-final success at London Lions, where they overturned a 13-point first-leg deficit to seal the club’s first appearance in a major final in seven years.

And Thomas said: “It didn’t matter how we got there, the most important thing was just getting to the quarter-finals.

Robert Sandoval goes up for two for Cheshire Phoenix against Glasgow Rocks (Image: Adam Day Photography)

“I was a bit worried that we were going to be complacent given what had happened the previous weekend (the win over London).

“Training was good, we worked hard, and it was another good week, but I just had this feeling.

“We came out and won the first quarter 21-17 and I thought, ‘it’s our day, we’re not going to be complacent’.

“But it couldn’t have been more of a different story in the second quarter. We looked asleep and almost beaten.

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“But we had a talk at half-time and we said that if we out-work teams, most teams will be not be able to live with us.

“We had to work hard in defence, work hard on rebounding, and play team basketball offensively – and that’s what we did.

“We started out-working them in the third quarter, winning the rebounding battle, playing a lot more intense defence, and we turned them over a lot more times. They had two turnovers at half-time and finished with 13, whereas we had six turnovers at half-time and finished with 11, so that’s says a lot.”

CJ Gettys (21), Malcolm Riley (18) and Orlan Jackman (13) led the scoring as Cheshire set up a quarter-final showdown at home to Worcester Wolves, who they will also face in the BBL Cup final.